Invisible Wings
by Les-Gateaux
Summary: In the aftermath of a tragedy that rips the tensai apart, Saeki is the only one left to comfort Fuji...FujiTezu, SaeFuji


Disclaimer: It'd be nice if I could have Tenipuri for a Christmas present. Unfortunately, I'm not quite that lucky…

Dedicated to RoYale,Sea-at-Night,and Ki-ku-maru Beam: Thanks so much for reviewing practically every chapter of every story I put up! You're so nice! Squeee! (And I think you all mentioned liking FujiSae, so here. Have fun.)

Warning: this fic is the result of a conversation I had with my friend Kristy. She was laughing at the way everything I wrote in school tended to be either amazingly sarcastic or horribly depressing. So, naturally, I told her to read my fanfics, since they're usually under the humor category. But she decided not to take my advice right away. Somehow, she waited until the day after I posted my SanaYuki fic, then read it and teased me about how it's 'so happy'.

Naturally, I got a bit pissed off – just a bit – and decided to write something amazingly cheerful. Of course, it didn't exactly turn out that way, and Kristy's still laughing at me.

Note to Sea-at-Night: I temporarily unblocked my email address on my bio page. Once you've gotten it, please send an email or write a review so I can block it again. Thanks. Oh, and email me for my AIM address…

Invisible Wings

_He can still see the approaching headlights, the drunken laughter ringing through his ears. He stands, paralyzed, watching the vehicle approach. Dimly, he registers the screams of the pedestrians as they watch the car tear down the road towards him. _

_Then there is another shout, more forceful, and he feels something barrel into him, knocking him to the sidewalk, to safety. He lands, hard, and twists around to see who has saved him. _

_He is just in time to see the car smash into his savior, and his blue eyes open wide as they follow Tezuka's arc through the air. In the time it takes for the other boy to land, a crumpled heap on the ground, he is screaming the name 'Kunimitsu', over and over again. _

_Tezuka does not move. Vaguely, he knows that Tezuka will never move again, no matter how hard he wishes. _

_He ignores the splitting headache from his head hitting the concrete and breaks into a run. He is still screaming, and the raw pain in his voice causes heads to turn, staring at the beautiful boy who is desperately racing towards his friend. _

_The sidewalk scrapes his knees when he falls to the ground by his captain. His blood mingers with that of Tezuka's, bringing the two boys together for a brief moment. Then he reaches out and feels Tezuka's cold skin, and realizes that they will never be together again. _

_Behind him, the driver has stopped, and taken a few steps out of the car, swaying. The man is quite obviously intoxicated, since he cannot even walk in anything resembling a straight line, but he walks doggedly in the general direction of where the boy is kneeling. _

_And he stands from where he has been cradling Tezuka's icy hands. His blue eyes are dark with fury, and his hands are clenched. The drunkard is still advancing, managing to look slightly worried, but that does not mollify his anger at all. _

_The driver begins to say a word, and his fist swings, the power coming from years of tennis finally paying off. The drunk man lets out a yell of pain, but he is too angry to care. Again, he swings, and then his foot lashes out, kicking the fallen man's ribs, snapping the bones. _

_Hands are gripping his arms, and he turns, hissing like a wildcat. Then the boy holding him back is shaking him, screaming his name. _

'_Fuji! Fuji!" _

Sapphire eyes snap open, and Fuji gazes up into Saeki's worried eyes. "Ah…Koujirou…"

"Was it the same?"

The tensai nods bleakly. "Sorry for waking you up."

Saeki shrugs. "It's twelve. You didn't really wake me up. I made breakfast, but it's probably cold by now."

"Ah, thanks." Fuji swings his legs off the bed and stands up, a bit shakily. "I'm not very hungry, though. I hope you'll excuse me. I had a big dinner last night, you know." He stretches lithely. "I'm going to go to tennis practice now. See you this afternoon."

His friend watches him go. Saeki turns moodily away to stare at the wall. Fuji ate nothing last night, he knows, and the same could be said for the afternoon and morning, along with the night before. He is worried, but Fuji will have none of it, saying that he is perfectly fine.

Surprisingly enough, the tensai's smile has grown much stronger in the weeks after the accident. Saeki doubts this is due to happiness. He is beginning to suspect more and more that the smile is nothing but a façade, and that his friend is never truly happy.

He sighs, and picks up his cell phone. He dials a number he has been calling quite frequently, waiting for it to pick up.

As usual, the phone is lifted on the second ring. "Fuji-san, it's Koujirou," he says softly.

"Saeki-kun. How…how is Syusuke doing?"

Fuji's mother is worried for her son, gravely so. Saeki's expression darkens. For a minute, he wonders whether he should lie and say that Syusuke is recovering. Then he remembers his promise to her, that he will say only the truth, and he looks down at the ground.

"Syusuke hasn't eaten for the past two days," he admits quietly.

His friend's mother chokes back a noise that is suspiciously like a sob. "Thank you," she murmurs. And then he hears a dull click, then the persistent beeping of the phone.

He presses 'end call', and slips the phone back into his pocket. Saeki lifts his own bag, starting towards the door. His own grades have been dropping, but he values his friend more than his middle school education, after all.

Standing on the train, he closes his eyes and wonders whether he will ever see Syusuke's true smile again.

_Surprisingly enough, the skies are clear when the crowd gathers for Tezuka Kunimitsu's funeral. There had been a forecast of rain, and Tezuka's grandmother says shakily that her grandson must have been watching over everyone. _

_Fuji stands there, dressed completely in black, refusing to cry. He supports Tezuka's family, and comforts the other Seigaku team members. Echizen is sulky and rebellious, but Fuji catches him crying softly in the grove of weeping willows by the cemetary, and smiles sadly. _

'_How can you stand there so coldly?' Atobe Keigo of Hyoutei asks him. 'You must be heartless.' _

_He wishes that, for then he wouldn't feel his heart shattering. He turns away from the diva and walks a short distance apart from the ceremony. _

_The others filter away after the last shovel of dirt has been dropped onto the casket. Fuji returns to the site, reaching out with trembling fingers to touch the gravestone. _

'_You really loved him, didn't you?' a voice asks, and he turns his head slightly to see his brother, watching, with eyes that are hardly dry. _

_He smiles falteringly. 'Perhaps. At fourteen, maybe I don't know exactly what love is…' _

_And then he curses, turning his face up to the sky. "Kuso. It's raining." _

_His brother frowns, blinking at the clear expanse of sky, devoid of a single cloud. "No, it's not." _

_Fuji turns to him, and reveals the drops of water trickling down either cheek. "It's raining." _

_There is a pause as Yuuta says nothing. Then he bows his head in acknowledgement. 'Yes,' he whispers, 'it is.'_

There has been no change in the Seigaku training schedule. Oishi, aspiring to lead the team in Tezuka's place, pushes harder than the captain ever did. The rules are now so strict that even whispering on the courts leads to ten laps.

Fuji is the one hit the hardest, naturally, closely followed by the new captain, who has lost one of his closest friends. Somehow, they are the ones working more than anyone else, as if they can drown their sorrows in tennis. Long after the others leave, the buchou and the tensai continue playing, unnoticing of the pitying glances the others throw their way.

The tennis club supports the two, and understands them. They are more lenient of Oishi's harsh training than they were of Tezuka's, and no one ever bothers the tensai.

Fuji walks onto the courts, a mocking smile on his face at the way the other smiles instantly stop. He moves towards Oishi, who, as usual, will be his training partner. Kikumaru plays against Taka-san, understanding his doubles partner's need for the tensai.

He hears a whisper spring up behind him, and Oishi gestures to the perpetrator, frowning. "No whispering on the courts. Ten laps."

The tensai sighs inwardly, but pauses, hearing Arai's hiss behind him: "Things were so much better when Tezuka-buchou was here."

His racket swings out before he has time to think. Years of tennis have paid off, and Arai screams in pain, falling to the ground. The racket drops as well, and Fuji stands alone in a crowd of people who have gone utterly still.

Ryuzaki-sensei takes a step towards him. "Fuji-"

He leaves the racket lying on the ground. Spinning abruptly, he leaves the courts, letting the metal doors clang shut behind him. He knows that people are already tending to Arai, and probably sympathizing with the junior, but he doesn't care, and he doesn't look back.

He feels a sudden wave of dizziness, and stumbles outside the campus, pulling out his phone. He punches in a number which has already been set on speedial. He never uses speedial, because Tezuka's number is on that list, and he no longer wants to cry. Not anymore.

"Koujirou?" he asks into the phone.

"Syusuke?" comes the faint reply. He wonders, for a minute, whether the transmission is bad – he can barely hear Saeki's voice, after all – before realizing that the entire world is blurry before his eyes.

He hears his friend shouting on the other end of the line, but is too far gone to care.

_He takes everything that reminds him of Tezuka and buries it in the very bottom of his closet. Someday, perhaps, he'll be able to look at them without weeping, with nostalgia instead of sadness. But the someday is not now. _

_Only one thing is left. From his neck, he unclasps a golden chain, and holds it in his hand, letting the links sift through his fingers. The pendant is of an angel holding a heart, and Tezuka had muttered embarrassedly that the angel had reminded him of Fuji. _

_Fuji had complained that Tezuka thought he looked like a girl, and they'd laughed. _

_Funny. That was probably the last time he'd laughed. _

_He lets the pendant slide along the chain. The angel is made of eighteen-karat gold, and it sparkles even in the dark room. He usually leaves his blinds down, now. _

_He lifts his hand to flick the necklace into the closet, but jerks back at the last moment, and the chain snaps. He stares at the broken clasp. Before he realizes, he is trembling, and Saeki opens the door to find him clutching the necklace so tightly that the angel's wings have cut into his hand. _

_That is when Saeki decides to take Fuji to live with him, in a separate apartment where no memories of Tezuka will be present. _

Fuji opens his eyes again, blinking at the white walls. He turns his head slightly, noticing the needles in his wrists, injecting intravenous fluids into him.

Saeki is sleeping on a chair next to the hospital bed. He looks faintly upset, and Fuji can tell that he has been crying. The tensai wonders why. Sitting up in the bed, he glances at the rest of the room, frowning at the complete whiteness of everything.

His friend opens dark silver eyes. "Are you feeling all right?"

"Naturally. Why wouldn't I be?"

Saeki's smile slips, fades. "Arai's family isn't pressing charges, because they understand what happened. And Arai's not too badly hurt – he'll be able to play tennis again in a few months."

Fuji tilts his head. "That's good, I suppose." He reaches for the needles in his arms.

"Don't touch those," Saeki warns. "If you'd bothered eating for the past few days, you wouldn't need them."

"That makes sense." Fuji is smiling again, brightly. "So how long do I have to stay here?"

The white-haired boy shrugs. "A week, at least. You're really stupid, you know?"

"Don't worry. Tezuka's told me that enough times. You two should get together someti-" Fuji stops abruptly, his eyes widening. He withdraws, turning away from his friend. "I'm tired. I'm going back to sleep."

"Yes." Saeki watches as Fuji closes his eyes and lies back down. He wants nothing more than to wrap his arms around his childhood friend, but he knows Fuji is not ready for that, and will probably never be. Although it is selfish, he wishes Fuji could forget about Tezuka.

He sighs, and places a light kiss on the tensai's forehead before leaving the room.

Behind him, blue eyes open fractionally.

_The jeweler hands back the necklace. 'It's fixed. Be more careful in the future.' _

'_Yes.' He reaches out and takes the chain. _

'_Cute pendant, by the way. Get it from a girlfriend?' _

_He shrugs nonchalantly. 'Something like that. Thank you.' He hands over the bills. _

'_Well, good luck with your relationship!' the man calls, waving. _

_He smiles, but his eyes are icy and hard. 'Thank you,' he repeats, and perhaps a bit of his anger seeps into his voice, because the jeweler studies him for a long while before nodding. _

_He gazes at the pendant when he is back on the street. The heart has writing on it, writing so faint it is barely able to be read. But he has memorised the words, naturally. 'Kunimitsu and Syusuke forever'. _

_Still staring at the glimmering golden words, he walks calmly towards the small cemetary. _

_Tezuka's gravestone is the most well-kept one in the neat rows. He comes there every day to polish it and leave flowers, as do Oishi, and Tezuka's grandparents. He fingers a sheaf of roses – probably from Oishi – and smiles wistfully. _

_Today, he has no flowers. _

_He drapes the golden chain over the top of the stone. 'I miss you,' he whispers to the earth. 'You said we would be together forever, and I'm giving you this so you can remember.' He pauses. 'I'll…be coming for you soon…' _

_That day, the roses are watered with tears. _

Saeki opens his eyes to find the bed empty. He rushes outside. "Where's Syusuke?"

"Fuji-san? We allowed him to go outside, because he's been very cooperative. He wanted to go look at the beach from the cliff, and since there's no possible way he can sneak away from the hospital grounds, the doctor agreed."

He relaxes. "Where's the beach?"

"Oh, just go out through that door."

Saeki follows the nurse's instructions. Fuji is standing on the middle of the cliff, the wind playing with his hair. It is midwinter, and bitterly cold, but the boy is wearing no coat, just a thin long-sleeved shirt.

He walks over. "Here," he says, holding out his jacket.

The tensai doesn't turn, gazing dreamily out to sea. "I don't need it, but thanks, Koujirou."

"Are you sure? It's quite cold."

Fuji turns. There is something in his eyes that scares and draws Saeki at the same time, a kind of primal, burning fire. "I'm not cold at all."

Saeki shrugs, putting the jacket back on. "Suit yourself. You shouldn't stay out here too long, though."

"Really? I was planning to stay here for a very long time, but oh well."

"You know," his friend replies softly, "it's Christmas."

"Ah, yes." Fuji smiles. "Would you like your present?"

Saeki blinks. "Eh…?"

Fuji's hands are pulling Saeki downwards, and though the other boy's hands are icily cold, Saeki finds himself leaning down into the embrace. He runs a hand through the tensai's silky hair, feeling the pliant body molding into his.

Despite the utter wrongness of this, Saeki continues kissing Fuji, who kisses him back, just as passionately.

And then Fuji breaks away. "Merry Christmas," he purrs, then turns, and begins to run.

Saeki stands in shock, watching the tensai's swift racing. "Syusuke?" he asks the wind, and then freezes. He begins to run, too, although he knows he will not make it. He is taller, and faster, but he has given Fuji too much of a head start.

They are five meters apart when Fuji stops. "Sorry," he calls, and then, more softly, "Goodbye."

Saeki's hands grasp air as Fuji launches himself off the cliff.

The tensai descends in a graceful arc. Saeki leans as far over the cliff as he dares, and screams the boy's name. Fuji doesn't glance back – has no time to, really – but manages to gasp out one sentence as he falls.

"Kunimitsu, I'll be with you soon!"

Saeki draws back, watching as the waves close over Fuji's head. He is crying – or perhaps that is just the rain, which has begun to fall, darkening the rock beneath his feet.

He pictures, one last time, the sapphire eyes, reminiscent of a summer river, and remembers the line of a poem Fuji had once written: _a river always flows to the sea._

"Tezuka was your sea, then," he murmurs bitterly, gazing at the tossing ocean.

And then he tilts his head. "And the fish who are trapped by the river? Do they also follow the river's course?"

_Tezuka Kunimitsu was dead, and with him died Fuji Syusuke and Saeki Koujirou. _

_Yuuta stands, looking at the three gravestones. He bends, laying a sheath of flowers down upon each. _

'_Goodbye,' he whispers, much like his brother had whispered just a week ago. _

_Three families are shattered, and can never be rebuilt. _

_He turns to leave, then turns back. 'Why did you do it?' he asks the last two gravestones. 'Didn't you know it would kill everyone around you, too? Are you both to fucking selfish to realize that?' He is yelling, and inadvertently crushes a single rose. _

_The thorn pierces through his shoe, digging into his foot, and the pain shocks him back into reality. He steps away. 'I'm sorry,' he says, quietly. He pauses, and bows his head. 'I love you,' he says. 'Aniki, Saeki-san…and I miss you, and wish you could come back.' He laughs. 'But wishes are for children, ne? And no wishing will ever bring either of you back.' _

_Once again, he whispers a farewell, and walks slowly away. _

_He will never return. _

* * *

Er...yeah. Merry Christmas??? 


End file.
